His Majesty O'Keefe

His Majesty O'Keefe is a 1954 adventure film starring Burt Lancaster. The film was directed by Byron Haskin and Otto Heller and included choreography by Daniel Nagrin. The cast also included Joan Rice, André Morell, Abraham Sofaer, Archie Savage, and Benson Fong.

The film is based on the book of the same name by Laurence Klingman and Gerald Green (1952).

Plot summary

Captain David O'Keefe (Burt Lancaster), seeking his fortune in the 19th century South Pacific, decides to enlist island natives to harvest copra, but runs into a wall of cultural problems. Backed by a Chinese dentist, he obtains a ship and sets about harvesting copra while fending off cantankerous native chieftains and evil German empire-builders. The natives, happy with their existence, see no reason to work hard to obtain copra, either for a German trading company or for O'Keefe. He finally motivates them by showing them how to produce large quantities of their valued coinage.

Historical basis

The basis for this story is believed to be an actual event. A sailor named David O'Keefe was shipwrecked on Yap in the Caroline Islands, where he found the natives highly prized Rai stones quarried at great effort and danger on the island of Palau. He organized the natives to produce these largest of all coins more easily and then traded them for copra and other items. The carved stones he produced were not valued as highly as those obtained by traditional methods due to the lack of personal sacrifice in their production.

References

• Chujoy, Anatole. The Dance Encyclopedia. (Simon and Schuster, 1967)